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Network The Internet

ISP Imposes Data Cap, Explains It To Users With Condescending Pizza Analogy (arstechnica.com) 102

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Cable company WideOpenWest (which markets itself as WOW!) yesterday told customers that it is imposing a data cap and explained the change with a pizza analogy that would seem more appropriate for a kindergarten classroom than for an email informing Internet users of new, artificial limits on their data usage. The email said WOW is "introducing a monthly data usage plan for your Internet service on June 1, 2021" and described the system as follows:

"What's a monthly data usage plan? Let us illustrate ... Imagine that the WOW! network is a pizza. Piping hot. Toppings galore. Every WOW! customer gets their own slice of pizza, but the size of their slice is dependent on their Internet service plan. While customers who subscribe to 1 Gig get the largest slices, those with Internet 500 get a slightly smaller piece, and so on. But, it's all the same delicious, high-speed pizza that you know and love. Now, say you're not full after your slice and you grab another. That extra slice is like a data overage. Don't worry -- we got extra pizza... umm, data... just in case. If you exceed your data allowance, we'll automatically apply increments of 50GB for $10 to your account for the remainder of the current calendar month. Total overage charges will not exceed $50 per billing statement no matter how much data you use. Even better -- the first time you experience a data overage, we'll proactively waive fees."

The email did not mention that, unlike pizza, Internet data doesn't run out and that there is plenty for everyone as long as a network is properly constructed and provisioned. And despite paragraphs of comparing data to pizza, the email literally never says how much data customers will be allowed to use before they are charged extra. The answer is in a newly updated "network management practices" document that says the monthly cap will range from 1TB to 3TB: the 50Mbps download plan gets 1TB, plans between 100 and 300Mbps download speeds get 1.5TB, the 500 and 600Mbps plans get 2.5TB, and the gigabit plan gets 3TB.
WOW has over 800,000 internet customers in parts of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In a separate document, WOW says that "[u]nlimited data plans may be added for an additional monthly charge" but doesn't say how much it will cost.

It's apparently not a bad April Fools' Day joke, either. People in the DSLReports forum have reportedly confirmed the changes with a WOW representative.
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ISP Imposes Data Cap, Explains It To Users With Condescending Pizza Analogy

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    So they charge extra if you go to the bar too many times. I got it...
  • Pineapple (Score:4, Funny)

    by arosenfield ( 998621 ) on Friday April 02, 2021 @05:16PM (#61230208)

    More importantly, what's their opinion about pineapple on their network/pizza?

    (You know, like the Wi-Fi devices?)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • "What's a monthly data usage plan? Let us illustrate ... Imagine that the WOW! network is a pizza. Piping hot. Toppings galore. At least in the ads we run. To make more pizza faster, billions of your tax dollars was taken and promised to be spent on a factory, but we pocketed it all instead. Every WOW! customer gets their own crappy slice of pizza, but the size of their slice is dependent on their Internet service plan and not the fact we pocketed your money and never made the factory. While customers who
  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Friday April 02, 2021 @05:24PM (#61230248)

    Why do they even care if you go over the cap (and, thus, have a cap) if they have extra capacity:

    That extra slice is like a data overage. Don't worry -- we got extra pizza... umm, data... just in case.

    I'll tell you why: $$$

  • If they are so happily letting them out.
    • If they are so happily letting them out.

      Who said Starlink will never have data caps?

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • No one said that. However, right now they don't and that will be attractive to people who want unlimited data.

          And are they the beta service where other broadband options exist right now?

          • Was supposed to be:
            And are they offering the beta service where other broadband options exist right now?
        • No one said that. However, right now they don't and that will be attractive to people who want unlimited data.

          Yep.. And that's exactly why they will have to have them eventually. Starlink is in orbit. They can't lay more fiber to a node.. All the data has to be beamed up wirelessly. Starlink only has a finite amount of spectrum. They'll attract the people who want huge amounts of data and then.. there will be a backlash.

          Back when @home started, there were no data caps either.. And then.... there were.

  • by l0ungeb0y ( 442022 ) on Friday April 02, 2021 @05:35PM (#61230290) Homepage Journal
    How do they get all that pizza to go through the series of tubes?
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday April 02, 2021 @05:39PM (#61230298)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Pizza place overs free refills on drinks. Pizza place stops offering refills. I stop going to pizza place because the value's not there for me. If I can't go to another pizzeria then I will finish everything that I've paid for.

    When I have unlimited data I only use it when I need it. When I have limited data I make sure to use all I paid for. Which raises a question... what's the most obnoxious way to burn up a few gigs? Back in ye olden days p2p was great because it caused latencies elsewhere. Whatcha

  • by Anonymous Coward
    That's what an ISP pays for "internet" it doesn't get for free from the likes of Alphabet, Amazon, Akamai, Netflix,.. Dedicated global transit is that cheap. That alone caps the cost of a 50Mbps connection at $10/month, for 16TB if you saturate that downlink 24/7. And then they oversubscribe their networks by at least a factor of 10, because realistically all their users never ever need more than 1/10th the bandwidth at the same time. The more stingy ISPs will oversubscribe by a factor of 100 and accept slo
    • Incremental cost of raw material is 10 $/month. What about the capital already invested in the last mile n/w. They need a return on it. What about salaries for their maintenance workers and call centers. What about cost of billing software. What about profit. You just made a case that the cost of a taxi ride should be just the cost of gasoline. Its a business. People are earning livings.
  • Nobody wants the infra to stay idle. So airlines overbook, and ISPs over-subscribe.

    In theory this should be all fine and dandy, in reality things are not so rosy. More people show up at the gate than expected, and all off a sudden the airline will need to compensate people who could not fly that day. ISPs: no compensation for you, but we will gladly throttle your data, or better, actually charge for overages.

    I would be all for doing this for efficiency, but things are not advertised honestly. The airline do

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday April 02, 2021 @05:59PM (#61230376)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I give it about a year before vendors like this are history.

      -jcr

      WoW or Starlink? Starlink will place caps when they get enough customers. At the moment they are still a new pizza parlour trying to get people in the door.

  • Technology moves forward constantly and obsoletes old pricing models in its wake.

    That's how "data caps" feel in the present time, where everyone is paying money for streaming video services that use bandwidth and doing videoconferences as a necessary part of a work-day, or as part of today's classroom experience.

    Realistically, the ISP needs to offer flat monthly pricing that's fair for the speed of data someone is willing to pay to consume. Beyond that, they shouldn't be concerned with capping monthly trans

  • In theory, bandwidth is limited and shared between all users. When one user uses more, others get less.
    In practice, ISPs lie about capacity and simply want more money when there is no actual need to ration

  • by dwater ( 72834 ) on Friday April 02, 2021 @06:30PM (#61230498)

    Why would it be too difficult to limit bandwidth per second, rather than per month, with pay bands set accordingly?

  • ... asking for no advert^H^H^H^H^Hanchovies. And I'll be damned if I'll pay the extra topping charge because your chef keeps adding anchovies.

  • If its pizza why are other people eating my piece, if I am paying for 1Gbps worth of pizza other people should not be able to put their grubby hands on it.

    Or maybe data usage isn't like pizza, we will never know

  • by peterww ( 6558522 ) on Friday April 02, 2021 @07:27PM (#61230700)

    "Internet data doesn't run out and that there is plenty for everyone as long as a network is properly constructed and provisioned."

    You mean like if the Internet is properly provisioned and constructed. Which it ain't.

    The whole internet is not some free for all of unlimited bandwidth. Every route through the internet has differences in size, access, and cost. It can cost two different rates to use the same internet service in the same *neighborhood*, all depending on a number of factors ranging from contracts to peering points to infrastructure.

    And regardless of what anyone tells you, running a large ISP includes significant capital layout and management, on top of peering contracts, on top of network infrastructure. Costs fluctuate, and of everyone paid the same, the overall price would be much higher.

    But a competitor can play an interesting game of "shift the cost", to make the average cost *appear* much cheaper, and therefore gain more subscribers. You can't just charge the same everywhere and provide the same access everywhere, or your competitor would provide it "cheaper", you'd lose your subscribers, and go out of business.

    Another reason ISPs charge extra is an artificial bandwidth control. If everyone maxes out their pipes, you have to impose QoS, or the connections' latency and bandwidth begins to eat itself due to things like PPS limits, retransmissions, fragmentation, etc.

    It's way more complicated than that, though, and there is no use trying to convince people, because they just want to pay as little as possible, so they pretend it's just greed.

  • ...then when I upload something, is that like throwing up the pizza I just ate?

    Will I get a refund for that slice?
  • The email did not mention that, unlike pizza, Internet data doesn't run out and that there is plenty for everyone as long as a network is properly constructed and provisioned.

    Actually, a pizza shop doesn't run out if it is "properly constructed and provisioned" to feed every customer all they can eat all the time. Of course, such provisioning would be very expensive so no pizza shop offers such a plan (at least at any "reasonable" price). In the context of an ISP, "running out" doesn't literally mean "runni

  • A 1 TB cap on a 50Mbps network works out to a full-bandwidth limit of 1.5 hours a day. Or in terms of HD movies (4.5 Mbps each): Eleven 90 minute movies a day. Can they sell it as a 50Mps service if you are only allowed to use the services at that level 90 minutes a day?
    • by ytene ( 4376651 )
      Hang on... mind if I just clarify this?

      A 1TB cap is one terabyte of data. A 50Mbps service gives 50 Megabits (not bytes) of download bandwidth, assuming that your modem/router had managed to negotiate full line speed with your ISP's rack at their distribution point and assuming that you get a full allocation of bandwidth...

      But we also know that there are QoS and packet overheads, so 50Mbps might be roughly equal to 5 megabytes once you factor that.

      1 terabyte is equal to 1,024 gigabytes... and 1 gig
  • F*** you!
  • I was going to sign up for their internet service, but then I read that and got hungry, so I ordered a pizza instead.

  • Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee

    No wonder they needed a kindergarten level analogy, their customers are in Trump supporting smoothbrain hick states! Might have been a more effective analogy to ask how many times you can fuck a roadkill possum before it explodes with cum, and thus you need to scrape another one from the asphalt.

  • Is it considered condescending because it is not stated in football fields or libraries of congress? Asking for a non-American friend...
  • Isn't in the West, so a more appropriate name should be WOE!
  • major cell carriers just quit the practice of charging for overage and changed to slowing traffic when you exceed your limit. Now landline want to charge for overages. A lot of people donâ(TM)t like having an inconsistent and especially unpredictablish bill. I donâ(TM)t think this will be popular with customers, but that telecoms have traditionally cared about that. Youâ(TM)d almost think they like being hated.

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